1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a liquid ejecting apparatus such as a printer or the like.
2. Related Art
An example of a liquid ejecting apparatus is an ink jet printer (see, for example, JP-A-2007-276394) that has a nozzle plate on which nozzles of a liquid droplet ejecting head are formed. A shutter capable of sliding is mounted on the nozzle plate. The shutter has aperture portions that expose the nozzles. When ink droplets are not ejected from the nozzles, the shutter covers the nozzles in order to keep them from drying out.
Incidentally, when liquid droplets are ejected from the liquid droplet ejecting head, minute liquid droplets occur as mist in response to ejection of target liquid droplets; the mist attaches to an aperture surface and increasingly forms gathered liquid. The gathered liquid may fall onto print paper, or ejected liquid droplets may come into contact with the gathered liquid and change their trajectory. In addition to these problems, aside from the mist, dust such as paper powder attached to print paper may become attached to the aperture surface; these attachments may contaminate the print paper or come into contact with the ejected liquid droplets and change their trajectory.
If the above shutter is provided, foreign materials such as mist and dust will not become attached to a portion of the aperture surface covered with the shutter. Thus, contamination of the aperture surface can be avoided. This shutter, however, is designed to block the nozzles, so when the aperture portions that expose the nozzles are large, for example, attachment of foreign materials may not be sufficiently suppressed.
These problems are generally common to a printer equipped with a shutter that slides along the nozzle plate as well as to a liquid ejecting apparatus that ejects liquid droplets.